A series of laboratory scale studies has been conducted to assess the thermal response of common rock types in Fennoscandinavia. The main objective of this experiment was to investigate experimentally the effect of initial compressive stress on thermal spalling and determine the mechanism causing thermal damage (spalling and fracturing) in rock observed in laboratory experiments. Seven tests were carried out including oven-dried and water-stored rock blocks, with and without applying bi-axial stress on three rock types, granite, gabbro and schist.

The purpose of this research work is to explore and describe human factors affectingmaintenance execution. To achieve the purpose of this study, the influencing factors have been identified using a literature survey. They have been categorized into four main groups namely organizational, workplace, job and individual factors. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is employed on data questionnaires to rank the priority of the factors. The interrelationships between these factors have been recognized by theInterpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) model. In the present case studies, MICMAC1analysis technique is also implemented for identifying the driving, dependent, linkage and autonomous factors. The data was collected through a questionnaire survey involving the participation of 16 and 25 maintenance staff and 10 mining experts in Swedish and Iranian mines, respectively. Within the study, it has been identified that the temperature, work layout, tools design and tools availability are the most important factors in both mines related to these categories. However, the significant factors in the organizational and individual categories are different in the selected mines. The effect of workplace factors on the maintainability of mining equipment is discussed and thereafter a methodology for maintainability management in the design and operation phases is developed. In the thirdcase study HEART2 is applied to estimate the probability of human error occurring duringmaintenance execution in an Iranian cable company. This research supports maintenance management to gain knowledge of human factors that affect maintenance execution. Further, this understanding could be useful in the development of strategies to improve the execution of maintenance.Keywords: Human Factors, Maintenance Management, Human Reliability, HumanPerformance, AHP, ISM, MICMAC, HEART

Human reliability makes a considerable contribution to the maintenance performance, safety, and cost-efficiency of any production process. To improve human reliability, the causes of human errors should be identified and the probability of human errors should be quantified. Analysis of human error is very case-specific; the context of the field should be taken into account. The aim of this study is to identify the causes of human errors and improve human reliability in maintenance activities in the cable manufacturing industry. The central thrust of this paper is to employ the three most common HRA techniques—human error assessment and reduction technique, standardized plant analysis risk-human reliability, and Bayesian network—for estimating human error probabilities and then to check the consistency of the results obtained. The case study results demonstrated that the main causes of human error during maintenance activities are time pressure, lack of experience, and poor procedure. Moreover, the probabilities of human error, obtained by employing the three techniques, are similar and consistent

As equipment becomes more complex, repair process becomes more complicated, costly and time-consuming. Maintainability principles are developed to facilitate the repair process. Maintainability principles are applied in design phase and they are characteristic that affects time, accuracy, ease and safety requirements of the repair process. Considering Maintainability principles in the design phase are critical in challenging operational conditions such as Arctic offshore. To have an effective design for maintainability a systematic management approach is required during the design phase. This paper is developed a systematic guideline for maintainability management as an engineering discipline for challenges operational condition

Some industries such as mining industry create complex and challenging work place for maintenance crews. For example in an underground mine, for some machines, heavy maintenance tasks must be performed on site in a limited workspace in a harsh environment, including dust and improper illumination. Such operating conditions can increase the health, safety, and environment (HSE) risk, reduce the availability of the machines and increase the life cycle cost of equipment. A review of current mining equipment design and maintenance procedure confirms that considerable reduction in HSE risk, as well as substantial cost savings, can be achieved by considering human factors. This study discusses the effect of workplace factors on the maintainability of mining equipment. It presents the results from questionnaires on the effect of work place factors on maintainability performance given to maintenance staff at two mines, one in northern Sweden and the other in Iran.

This paper investigates the factors affecting humanperformance in maintenance task in mining sector. Theobjective is identify various factors and to classify them asdriving (strong driving power and weak dependence) anddependent factors (weak driving power and strongdependence). The factors were identified through literaturesurvey and are ranked using mean score of data questionnaire.The reliability of measures is pretested by applyingCronbach’s alpha coefficient to responses to a questionnairegiven to maintenance personnel. The interrelationshipsbetween human factors have been recognized by interpretivestructural modeling (ISM). Further, these factors have beenclassified using matrice d'impacts croises-multiplicationappliqué à un classement (MICMAC) analysing. This casestudy will figure out the factors affecting human performancefor deriving maintenance management insights to improveproductivity in the mining sector. Further, this understandingmay be helpful in framing the policies and strategies formining industry. Temperature, lighting, documentation,communication and fitness are driving factors. Moreover,Work layout, tools availability, complex tasks, time pressure,safety, boss decisions, training, fatigue and motivation havestrong driving power as well as high dependencies and itcomes under the category of linkage factors.

The conditions for doing business are rapidly changing. The Internet and related advances in information technology significantly affect financial services in general and insurance markets and institutions in particular. The growing importance of e-commerce represents a watershed event for insurance markets and institutions, as it does for most industries. By lowering information costs, e-commerce will enable insurers to classify, underwrite, and price risk as well as settle claims more accurately and efficiently. Overall, the Internet will significantly enhance the efficiency of insurance markets and institutions and benefit consumers by lowering transaction and information costs. The effects of e-commerce are the subjects of intense debate in insurance industry. The foundation for the purpose of this research has been created by a prospective study to explore the impact of application of e-commerce on the Iranian insurance industry. In order to fulfill the purpose of this study, a frame of reference has been emerged based on a vast literature review. With the focus at quantitative research as a general approach and descriptive research as the type of research in this study, a structured questionnaire was used as the data collection instrument. To accomplish this, a survey of 258 people (in almost all active insurance companies in Iran) has been carried out. The respondents from almost every department within the targeted insurance companies were randomly chosen. We have focused on the perception of insurers regarding the subject of study, and thus, the perception of other stakeholder such as insurance agents/brokers and even their customers have been suggested for future research, due to limitation and demarcation of this research. This dissertation has been organized in the seven chapters. An introduction this study, problem statements and research questions were presented in chapter one. The second chapter was devoted to literature review. The emerged frame of reference was provided in the third chapter and our research methodology was discussed in the fourth chapter. Data presentation and analysis were done in accordance with the research questions and the frame of reference in chapter five and six, respectively. Finally, in the last chapter findings and conclusions were drawn by answering the research questions. With respect to the findings, we conclude that the Iranian insurance companies were positively looked at e-commerce and its application in their companies. Their attitude and views toward e-commerce was positive so that they found that e-commerce would be an opportunity rather than a challenge or even a threat for insurance industry. They highly believed that e- commerce would affect on insurance companies and, thus, their companies should embrace e-commerce. Lack of skilled staffs in e-commerce application and scarcity of IT experts were the most infrastructure requirements which they found that the Iranian insures were suffering from. Whereas they were well equipped with hardware and networking as well as general and professional insurance software required in e-commerce applications. Lagging of other supportive sectors (e.g., e-Banking and Telecommunications), lack of appropriate legislation and regulation (e.g., copy right, digital signature, …), low Internet usage and fewer users, traditionally attitudes and views over the companies and scarcity of skilled staffs were the five top major obstacles which would hinder the Iranian insurers to embrace e-commerce. E-commerce is potentially applicable to marketing and sales as well as R&D with respect to insurance value chain. On the other hand, as far as insurance products concern, auto (motor) insurance, marine and aviation, life insurance and fire insurance were highly perceived to suitable to e- commerce (sale online). Finally, the Iranian insurance companies were chiefly believed that in the case of e-commerce application they would get these top five benefits: brand and image promotion (as a pioneer and modern company), extended corporation with partners (specially in the reinsurance cases), lower invest for establishing the sales and after sales services network, cost reduction in value chain management (e.g. product/service development) and decentralization and no restrictions imposed by national borders.

One of the most important problems in the production and inventory planning field, is the scheduling of production and work force in a dynamic environment. Although this problem can be formulated as a linear program, it is often quite difficult to solve directly, due to its large scale. Instead, it might be fruitful to use a decomposition approach. Decomposition, in general, means decomposing a difficult problem into several easier, or a sequence of easier problems which are later coordinated to reconstruct the original problem.In this report we discuss several possibilities of applying the most common decomposition principles, namely Benders (primal) and Datnzig-Wolfe (dual), as well as a relatively new decomposition method, called cross decomposition, to the dynamic, multiproduct production and employment planning problem. A number of special cases are also presented.

In this paper the resemblance is demonstrated between the master- and subproblems generated by the Kornai-Liptak algorithm and the subproblems obtained by using the cross decomposition method on linear optimization problems with block-angular structure. The significance of the similarity between these two algorithms becomes apparent considering the main disadvantage attributed to cross decomposition. In cross decomposition a master problem has to be solved from time to time since the subproblems alone do not always give a converging sequence of primal and dual solutions. But if the cross decomposition algorithm is modified in such a way that the successive primal and dual subproblem solutions are taken into consideration with equal weights, this results in the Kornai-Liptak algorithm for which convergence is guaranteed

11.

Aarflot, Markus

et al.

Luleå University of Technology, Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences.

Jangstam, Pontus

Luleå University of Technology, Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences.

The road based transportation operations are growing rapidly, but the current infrastructure cannot sustain the entire growth. At the same time vehicle utilisation and fill rates are low. Improved efficiency of the operations is a necessary way forward for road based transportation. Parallel to this, heavy vehicle producers are currently improving the efficiency with services accompanying the product that are focused on the driver and the vehicle performance. However, the data from connected vehicles required for these services only entail a small amount of the operational data generated by connected vehicles. The case study aims to answer how to use connected vehicle operational data in order to suggest value adding services in a dynamic road distribution system. The applied methodology is an inductive study with an explanatory approach to map the current and future service offerings of the case company. This knowledge is combined with an exploratory approach with interviews of transport planners and theories of Lean and fleet management. Primarily, it is concluded that the perspective of operational data requires widening. Considering not only driver and vehicle operations but rather the entire transport operation of a company. It is also concluded that value creation with operational data is possible during three phases of fleet management. First, if knowledge about order data is accessible, the planning of transportations can be improved using route optimisation and operations research. Secondly, it is possible to create value during the execution phase, throughless manual supervision and communication by transport planners. Lastly, both the currently used operational data and further data usage can contribute to a better understanding of the performance of a fleet operation and facilitate for continuous improvements during an evaluation phase.

Study DesignRandomized controlled trial. BackgroundLow back pain is a common disorder. Patients with low back pain frequently have aberrant and pain-provocative movement patterns that often are addressed with motor control exercises. ObjectiveTo compare the effects of low-load motor control (LMC) exercise and those of a high-load lifting (HLL) exercise. MethodsSeventy participants with recurrent low back pain, who were diagnosed with nociceptive mechanical pain as their dominating pain pattern, were randomized to either LMC or HLL exercise treatments. Participants were offered 12 treatment sessions over an 8-week period. All participants were also provided with education regarding pain mechanisms. MethodsParticipants were assessed prior to and following treatment. The primary outcome measures were activity (the Patient-Specific Functional Scale) and average pain intensity over the last 7 days (visual analog scale). The secondary outcome measure was a physical performance test battery that included 1 strength, 3 endurance, and 7 movement control tests for the lumbopelvic region. ResultsBoth interventions resulted in significant within-group improvements in pain intensity, strength, and endurance. The LMC group showed significantly greater improvement on the Patient-Specific Functional Scale (4.2 points) compared with the HLL group (2.5 points) (P

Purpose: The specific objectives were to: 1) describe the level of pain intensity, disability, activity limitation, kinesiophobia and physical capacity in patients with predominantly peripherally mediated mechanical back pain, and 2) investigate whether differences between these patients in physical and psychosocial factors can be distinguished when the patients are further sub-grouped.Relevance: To improve assessment among patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) it is important to investigate the prevalence of physical and psychosocial features in homogenous sub-groups.Participants: Seventy-one patients with CLBP, 20-60 years old, with peripherally mediated mechanical pain at the the moment for the study, were included and each patient was sub-classified into one of five sub-groups based on their pain behaviour and functional movement pattern (flexion n=20, flexion/lateral shift, n=11, active extension n=23 , passive extension n=8, and multidirectional pattern n=9).Methods: Data on pain intensity (Visual Analogue Scale), disability (the Roland and Morris Questionnaire), activity limitation (the Patient Specific Functional Scale), kinesiophobia (the Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia) and physical capacity (lifting capacity and trunk extensor endurance) was collected.Analysis: Mean and standard deviation for parametric and median and interquartile range for non-parametric data were used for descriptive statistics. One-way ANOVA for normally distributed data and Kruskal-Wallis for non-normally distributed data were used for analyses of differences between the sub-groups. The subjects were also divided into two age-groups (20-40 and 41-60 years) and measures of physical capacity were compared to women and men at the ages of 34 and 50, respectively, in the general Swedish population using one sample T-test.Results: The patients reported low to moderate pain intensity (3.1/10±2.4), disability (RMDQ (7.27/24 ±4.2) and kinesiophobia (33.4/68 ±7) and these levels were lower than reported levels in other studies including more heterogenous groups of patients with CLBP. The patiens reported activity limitations (PSFS 13/30±23). Lifting capacity and trunk extensor endurance were significantly lower than in the general population in the youngest age-group. No significant differences in pain intensity, disability, kinesiophobia or physical capacity were found between the sub-groups.Conclusions: This research highlights that patients with predominantly peripherally mediated mechanical back pain may differ from other sub-groups of patients with CLBP (e.g., patients with central sensitization as dominating pain mechanism) regarding physical and psychosocial factors. The individual variation in pain intensity, disability, kinesiophbia and physical capacity among the patients indicates the importance to assess these factors in every patient. Due to the fact that there were few patients in the sub-groups, further research is necessary to explore whether there are differences, that we were not able to disingjish, between patients with different movement patterns.

Background: In today's society there are increasing demands for performance and efficiency, not least of all in the public sector. Wellness efforts can strengthen employees health and well-being, which is crucial for job performance. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate whether employees in three sectors in one municipality in the north of Sweden had knowledge and utilized wellness initiatives, and how they felt that wellness efforts affected their health. Method: The data collection consisted of a questionnaire that was distributed in two ways, by web and by paper. The questionnaire contained 24 questions, 19 questions with fixed answers and 5 open questions. Sample: The sample of the study consisted of all employees who were 18 years or older in the areas of group housing, day care and psychiatry. All departments are included in the occupation area of support and care. A total of 47 people participated of which 30 were women and 17 men.Results: 92 % were aware that they were offered some kind of wellness effort but only 52 % utilized any wellness initiative that the employer offered. Of those who used the wellness initiative 48 % were satisfied and 52 % were not satisfied. Wellness allowance was the most used wellness initiative, which most utilized for gym membership. The majority of employees wanted a fitness hour during paid working hours. Conclusion: The study showed that most employees do not occupy any wellness initiative although many were aware that they were offered. Most of them wanted more joint activities, including training during working hours.

This bachelor thesis has been produced by the initiative of Luleå municipality, with the focus investigating the content of a mobile strategy. In this thesis, we tried to distil the important aspects of a mobile strategy. The purpose was to study which aspects should or could be part of a mobile strategy. With the help of a theoretical review of the areas: IT-strategy, strategy, mobile strategy, Bring Your Own Device, Mobile device management also Luleå municipalities IT-policy and their IT-Strategy, we produced a theoretical framework. This framework, together with a survey and semi-structured interviews, form the base of the study. The survey consisted of a total of 194 respondents, which corresponds to 3% of the total amount of the employees, and we did 7 interviews with 7 different IT-coordinators on different units. The result shows that a mobile strategy needs to consider following aspects: Bring Your Own Device, Choose Your Own Device, Management system, Technology neutrality, Application management, Stress management, and Overview of fixed telephony.

This project has been preformed as a master degree thesis in the engineering program Ergonomic Design and Production at Luleå University of Technology (LTU). The project was assigned by Volvo Car Corporation (VCC) in Gothenburg and carried out at Cross Design AB. The purpose of the project was to investigate how storage in the front part of the Volvo models S80, V70, XC70 and XC90 could be improved and optimised. The project should result in one storage solution concept. The procedure of the project was based on a combined methodology of the Sirius Masterplan Design Process and Systematic Problem Solving. To find the existing needs in car storage a survey was performed on a group of 20 car drivers who represented the target group of potential buyers. To make sure to receive extensive information both questionnaires, interviews and observations were carried out. In order to incorporate inspiration and an overview of the range of products on the market the team carried out a benchmarking of most of the leading car makes in Sweden. Related technologies were also studied to find new angles of approach and to increase the number of ideas. An analysis of how the car will be used in the future was performed as well as a general trend analysis of peoples life styles and habits. In the surveys it was found that people are spending more and more time in their cars and that it is becoming important to provide for other needs than the traditional. The studied cars are often used for longer trips at work or on vacation. This creates a need for possibilities for storing office equipment and to have easy access to beverage and food. The idea generation was carried out through the methods of brainstorming, categorising and and adjusted form of the Delphi method and resulted in a wide range of storing solutions. To narrow down the project it was decided to focus only on the glove compartment, the area in the middle of the dashboard, and on the area behind the centre stack. Several concepts were put together for each of these areas on the basis of the previously developed ideas. It was decided to proceed with the development of the glove compartment concepts. These were to be applied on the coming XC90 which has the largest glove compartment volume of VCC’s cars. The glove compartment concepts were compared to previously stated product demands and wishes as well as to each other. The ones with the most innovative ideas and best scores were extracted and supplemented with good ideas from other concepts. The selection specially focused on flexibility, organisation and individualisation possibilities as well as innovation. A combination of concepts ended up with a notch and a case concept, which both could be supplemented with a so called sleigh for easier access. Since both concepts and combinations lived up to the demands the final concept choice was based on calculated scores as well as which was considered to be the most innovative. On these grounds the case concept, called the Glove Compartment Case (GCC), was elected. The GCC consists of two removable cases: one cooling unit and one organised unit. The concept fulfils the wishes of flexibility, organisation and individuality since it allows the user to organise the glove compartment after occasion and stored items.

In this work, small signal DC voltage dependent dielectric permittivity, loss tangent, and tuneability of magnetron sputtered epitaxial Na0.5K0.5NO3 films are studied experimentally. (100)-oriented Na0.5K0.5NbO3 films are deposited onto SiO2-buffered CMOS grade low resistivity (p = 10-20 cm) and high resistivity (p = 15-45 kcm) silicon substrates. Planar capacitors with 2 or 4 m gaps between electrodes have been fabricated on top of ferroelectric films. These devices have been characterized in the frequency range 1.0 MHz to 50 GHz at temperatures 30 - 300K. Na0.5K0.5NbO3/SiO2/Si structures on high resistivity silicon substrate exhibit C-V performances typical for Metal-Insulator- Semiconductor (MIS) capacitors. At low frequencies, f 1.0 GHz, the large tuneability and large losses are associated with the MIS structure, while at higher microwave frequencies the tuneability is mainly associated with the ferroelectric, film. At 1.0 MHz and room temperature, the tuneability of Na0.5K0.5NbO3/SiO2/Si structures more than 90%, reducing to 10-15 % at 50 GHz. The losses decrease with increasing the DC bias and frequency. A Q-factor more than 15 at 50 GHz is observed. The dielectric permittivity of the Na0.5K0.5NbO3 film is in the range 50-150 at frequencies 0.045-50 GHz. On low resistivity substrate the performance of Na0.5K0.5NbO3 films is completely screened by the high losses in silicon, and the tuneability is negligible

In this work Silicalite-1 films were prepared on porous ?-alumina micro filtration filters acting as a support using the ”seed film method”. The films were modified using an aqueous solution of Ca(NO3)2 in order to obtain a carbon dioxide (CO2) selective membrane. Two different modification procedures were developed in the present work. The procedures are denoted “evacuation” and “spinning technique”. Single gas permeation and n-hexane porosimetry were used for the characterisation of the membranes. CO2, nitrogen (N2), helium (He) and hydrogen (H2) were used as probe molecules in single gas permeation experiments. n-Hexane porosimetry was used to determine the amount of defects in the membranes. Both modified and unmodified samples were characterized using these techniques. It was found that a high concentration of Ca(NO3)2 deteriorated the membrane quality according to porosimetry data. The CO2/(H2, N2 or He) permeance ratios became slightly higher after modification of samples modified with a lower salt concentration. However, no significant difference between the two modified methods could be observed with respect to CO2 selectivity. It may be thus concluded that CaO was not optimally deposited in the silicalite-1 film. EDS and SEM analysis showed the concentration of Ca varied on the surface but was distributed without aggregates.

— Greater Zab and Lesser Zab are the majortributaries of igris River contributing the largest flow volumes into the river. The impacts of climate change on water resources in these basins have not been well addressed. To gain a better understanding of the effects of climate change on water resources of the study area in near future (2049-2069) as well as in distant future (2080-2099), Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was applied. The model was first calibrated for the period from 1979 to 2004 to test its suitability in describing the hydrological processes in the basins. The SWAT model showed a good performance in simulating streamflow. The calibrated model was then used to evaluate the impacts of climate change on water resources. Six general circulation models (GCMs) from phase five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, and RCP 8.5 for periods of 2049-2069 and 2080-2099 were used to project the climate change impacts on these basins. The results demonstrate a significant decline in waterresources availability in the future.

35.

Abbas, Nahla

et al.

School of Engineering and Technology, Central Queensland University, Melbourne .

Wasimi, Saleh A.

School of Engineering and Technology, Central Queensland University, Melbourne .

Al-Ansari, Nadhir

Luleå University of Technology, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Mining and Geotechnical Engineering.

Greater Zab is the largest tributary of the Tigris River in Iraq where the catchment area is currently being plagued by water scarcity and pollution problems. Contemporary studies have revealed that blue and green waters of the basin have been manifesting increasing variability contributing to more severe droughts and floods apparently due to climate change. In order to gain greater appreciation of the impacts of climate change on water resources in the study area in near and distant future, SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) has been used. The model is first tested for its suitability in capturing the basin characteristics, and then, orecasts from six GCMs (general circulation models) with about half-a-century lead time to 2046~2064 and one-century lead time to 2080~2100 are incorporated to evaluate the impacts of climate change on water resources under three emission scenarios: A1B, A2 and

B1. The results showed worsening water resources regime into the future.

Isaac River catchment, which is located within Fitzroy basin in Central Queensland, Australia is mostly a semi-arid region, sparsely populated, but rife with economic activities such as mining, grazing, cropping and production forestry. Hydro-meteorological data over the past several decades reveal that the catchment is experiencing increasing variability in precipitation and streamflow contributing to more severe droughts and floods supposedly due to climate change. The exposure of the economic activities in the catchment to the vagaries of nature and the possible impacts of climate change on the stream flow regime are to be analyzed. For the purpose, SWAT model was adopted to capture the dynamics of the catchment. During calibration of the model 12parameters were found to be significant which yielded a R2 value of 0.73 for calibration and 0.66 for validation. In the next stage, six GCMs from CMIP3 namely, CGCM3.1/T47, CNRM-CM3, GFDLCM2.1, IPSLCM4, MIROC3.2 (medres) and MRI CGCM2.3.2 were selected for climate change projections in the Fitzroy basin under a very high emissions scenario (A2), a medium emissions scenario(A1B) and a low emissions scenario (B1) for two future periods (2046-2064) and (2080-2100). All GCMs showed consistent increases in temperature, and as expected, highest rate for A2 and lowest rate for B1. Precipitation predictions were mixed-reductions in A2 and increases in A1B and B1, and more variations in distant future compared to near future. When the projected temperaturesand precipitation were inputted into the SWAT model, and the model outputs were compared with the baseline period (1980-2010), the picture that emerged depicted worsening water resources variability.

Diyala River is the third largest tributary of the Tigris River running 445 km length and draining an area of 32,600 km2. The river is the major source of water supply for Diyala City for municipal, domestic, agriculture and other purposes. Diyala River Basin currently is suffering from water scarcity and contamination problems. Up-to-date studies have shown that blue and green waters of a basin have been demonstrating increasing variability contributing to more severe droughts and floods seemingly due to climate change. To obtain better understanding of the impacts of climate change on water resources in Diyala River Basin in near 2046~2064 and distant future 2080~2100, SWAT (soil and water assessment tool) was used. The model is first examined for its capability of capturing the basin characteristics, and then, projections from six GCMs (general circulation models) are incorporated to assess the impacts of climate change on water resources under three emission scenarios: A2, A1B and B1. The results showed deteriorating water resources regime into the future.

The Khabour River is one of five tributaries of Tigris River and the first river flows into Tigris River contributing to Tigris Flow by about 2 BCM at Zakho Station. The area of this catchment is 6,143 km2, of which 57% are located in Turkey and 43% in Iraq with a total length of 181 km. Khabour River is the main source of fresh water to Duhok City, one of the major cities of Kurdistan Region. Hydrometeorological data over the past several decades reveal that the catchment is experiencing increasing variability in precipitation and stream flow contributing to more severe droughts and floods presumably due to climate change. SWAT model was applied to capture the dynamics of the basin. The model was calibrated at Zakho station. The performance of the model was rather satisfactory; R2 and ENC were 0.5 and 0.51, respectively in calibration period. In validation process R2 and ENC were nearly consistent. In the next stage, six GCMs from CMIP3 namely, CGCM3.1/T47, CNRM-CM3, GFDL-CM2.1, IPSLCM4, MIROC3.2 (medres) and MRI CGCM2.3.2 were selected for climate change projections in the basin under a very high emissions scenario (A2), a medium emissions scenario (A1B) and a low emissions scenario (B1) for two future periods (2046-2064) and (2080-2100). All GCMs showed consistent increases in temperature and decreases in precipitation, and as expected, highest rate for A2 and lowest rate for B1. The projected temperatures and precipitation were input to the SWAT model to project water resources, and the model outputs were compared with the baseline period (1980-2010), the picture that emerged depicted deteriorating water resources variability.

SWAT model (Sediment and Water Assessment Tool) was used to evaluate the impacts of climate change on water resources in Al-Adhaim Basin which is located in north east of Iraq. Al-Adhaim River is the main source of fresh water to Kirkuk City, one of the largest cities of Iraq. Recent studies have shown that blue and green waters of the basin have been manifesting increasing variability contributing to more severe droughts and floods apparently due to climate change. In order to gain greater appreciation of the impacts of climate change on water resources in the study area in near and distant future, SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) has been used. The model is first tested for its suitability in capturing the basin characteristics, and then, forecasts from six GCMs with about half-a-century lead time to 2046-2064 and one-century lead time to 2080-2100 are incorporated to evaluate the impacts of climate change on water resources under three emission scenarios: A2, A1B and B1. The results showed worsening water resources regime into the future.

Kurdistan in northern Iraq, a semi-arid region, predominantly a pastureland, is nourished by Lesser Zab, which is the second major tributary of Tigris River. The discharge in the tributary, in recent times, has been experiencing increasing variability contributing to more severe droughts and floods supposedly due to climate change. For a proper appreciation, SWAT model has been used to assess the impact of climate change on its hydrological components for a half-centennial lead time to 2046-2064 and a centennial lead time to 2080-2100. The suitability of the model was first evaluated, and then, outputs from six GCMs were incorporated to evaluate the impacts of climate change on water resources under three emission scenarios: A1B, A2 and B1. The results showed worsening water resources regime.

Tehran, the capital of Iran has undergone major urbanization in the last century, which has caused uncontrollable urban growth. Poor regulation and control of this growth has given rise to environmental problems including high air and water pollution. In turn, this has led to urban growth towards the mountains in the north, where the environment is better. However, this pressure to develop in the north has increased segregation of the city and created a clear social division of class between the northern and southern parts of the City.

In light of this, and in the context of Tehran as an extremely dense city with limited green space, the City sees a possibility in transforming an unused military airport in the southern districts of the city into a new urban park.

This master thesis explores how to reclaim the 270Ha former airfield and develop it as an urban park with strengthened links to surrounding neighbourhoods.

The work aims to gain an understanding of how large vacant areas can become successful public areas and green places in the community. The work is based on urban theory and site analysis and brings forward design proposals for the park.

Analysis work is divided into an investigative and exploratory stage. The investigative part includes literature studies, data collection and mapping of the city’s urban morphological development, taking into account physical and socio-economic processes. The exploratory part consisted of inventories, site studies and interviews in Tehran, as well as integration analysis with space syntax to explore accessibility and connections in the new park.

Throughout the study shows how and why the city has evolved and highlights a connection between living in the southern districts, which are low-income areas, with also having poor access to public and recreation areas.

This analysis forms the foundations for the design proposal, visualizations and programs presented about how the area can be designed as a new urban city park.

In conclusion, the study highlights that in order to be able to develop new places or renew existing area’s, consideration must be given to urban morphological development. This includes the socio-economic and socio-ecological process. It further concludes, that a ecological viewpoint together with a understanding of the physical environment, the urban landscape identity and the need of people in the context needs to be brought together to plan and create parks and urban spaces

The project is about a meter called Water Content Monitor WCM411. It is a moisture meter used in this assignment to measure the actual moisture content of raw bentonite. It is made in Finland with a quite new technology. It is based on infrared measurement technology and is completely non-contact. The purpose of this project is to measure the moisture content of raw bentonite in a reliable manner so that the new plant to be built in Sandskär can control the temperature and amount of drying air to the bentonite. The equipment needs to be calibrated before its initial use. Three methods can be used to calibrate the equipment so that it can measure the actual moisture content of the crude bentonite. The first method is based on taking a sample and determine calibration factor. The second method is based on guessing a value `Learning by doing''. The third method is based on doing mathematical calculations to find calibration. At the end the master's student reviews the key elements that have been discovered which allows one to start up the equipment in a reliable manner. You can read about the instances that can be helpful to know before taking equipment into use. Through discussion, you can see which questions concerning equipment work that the master's student has taken up and which measures student has suggested. Finally, summarizing the student has the conclusions that can be made after this work

The objective of the study was to develop methods for ergonomics assessment of agricultural work with hand tools in the laboratory and thereafter adapted in the field. A total of eight male graduate students (mean age, height and weight were 29.4 years, 176.8 cm and 81.0 kg respectively) participated in a digging task using a hand hoe. The digging task was performed within three minutes in a 2 m * 1.5 m metal box full of moist sand. 3 video cameras were installed to record the working posture. At the last minute, during interval of 15 seconds, heart rates (HR) along with rate of perceived exertion (RPE) 6-20 were measured to assess the physical load. Awkward postures while the hoe lifted up as well as stroke the soil were frozen and different joint angles were measured to provide input for 3- dimesional static strength prediction programme (3D SSPP). The data analyses included linear regression for HR as a function of RPE: 3D SSPP software calculated the percentage of population capable of performing the task and low-back compressive forces. Compression force on L5/S1 was plotted as a function of HR and RPE. The results revealed that the correlation coefficient (r) for HR and RPE (p<0.05) was 0.59: the measured and perceived physical load range from light to heavy. the output obtained from the software showed that low-back compressive forces were below the niosh recommended safe limit (3400 n) when the hoe lifted up. however, when the hoe stroke the soil, compression force on l5/s1 for 25% from the subjects exceeded the niosh safe limit and therefore they were at high risk of back injury. when the force on l5/s1 plotted as a function of hr and rpe, the results showed that there was no linear relationship between these variables. in conclusion, hr a long with rpe proved to be used in the laboratory as well as in the field. 3d sspp could be used in the laboratory, nevertheless, in the field, one video camera would be appropriate.

The popularity of network virtualization has recently regained considerable momentum because of the emergence of OpenFlow technology. It is essentially decouples a data plane from a control plane and promotes hardware programmability. Subsequently, OpenFlow facilitates the implementation of network virtualization. This study aims to provide an overview of different approaches to create a virtual network using OpenFlow technology. The paper also presents the OpenFlow components to compare conventional network architecture with OpenFlow network architecture, particularly in terms of the virtualization. A thematic OpenFlow network virtualization taxonomy is devised to categorize network virtualization approaches. Several testbeds that support OpenFlow network virtualization are discussed with case studies to show the capabilities of OpenFlow virtualization. Moreover, the advantages of popular OpenFlow controllers that are designed to enhance network virtualization is compared and analyzed. Finally, we present key research challenges that mainly focus on security, scalability, reliability, isolation, and monitoring in the OpenFlow virtual environment. Numerous potential directions to tackle the problems related to OpenFlow network virtualization are likewise discussed

Cationic flotation is one of the most widely accepted technologies for upgrading siliceous iron ore using polysaccharides (mainly starches) as depressing agents for iron bearing minerals while floating silica with amines. In this paper, a group of starches are investigated as depressants for haematite. These starches are wheat, corn, rice, potato and dextrin. The role of starch type on the selectivity of the separation process has been studied through zeta potential, adsorption measurements as well as flotation tests. The effects of type of starch and pH of the medium have been studied. The results indicate that the selectivity of the separation process is strongly affected by the type of starch used, where better results are obtained with corn starch or wheat starch in comparison to the other types. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measurements indicated that the interaction between starches and haematite surface is intermolecular interaction

Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems have become very important for the medical diagnosis of brain tumors. The systems improve the diagnostic accuracy and reduce the required time. In this paper, a two-stage CAD system has been developed for automatic detection and classification of brain tumor through magnetic resonance images (MRIs). In the first stage, the system classifies brain tumor MRI into normal and abnormal images. In the second stage, the type of tumor is classified as benign (Noncancerous) or malignant (Cancerous) from the abnormal MRIs. The proposed CAD ensembles the following computational methods: MRI image segmentation by K-means clustering, feature extraction using discrete wavelet transform (DWT), feature reduction by applying principal component analysis (PCA). The two-stage classification has been conducted using a support vector machine (SVM). Performance evaluation of the proposed CAD has achieved promising results using a non-standard MRIs database.

The use of medical images has been continuously increasing, which makes manual investigations of every image a difficult task. This study focuses on classifying brain magnetic resonance images (MRIs) as normal, where a brain tumor is absent, or as abnormal, where a brain tumor is present. A hybrid intelligent system for automatic brain tumor detection and MRI classification is proposed. This system assists radiologists in interpreting the MRIs, improves the brain tumor diagnostic accuracy, and directs the focus toward the abnormal images only. The proposed computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system consists of five steps: MRI preprocessing to remove the background noise, image segmentation by combining Otsu binarization and K-means clustering, feature extraction using the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) approach, and dimensionality reduction of the features by applying the principal component analysis (PCA) method. The major features were submitted to a kernel support vector machine (KSVM) for performing the MRI classification. The performance evaluation of the proposed system measured a maximum classification accuracy of 100 % using an available MRIs database. The processing time for all processes was recorded as 1.23 seconds. The obtained results have demonstrated the superiority of the proposed system.

This Licentiate Thesis consists of four chapters, which deal with a new Sobolev type function space called the space with multiweighted derivatives. This space is a generalization of the usual one dimensional Sobolev space. Chapter 1 is an introduction, where, in particular, the importance to study function spaces with weights is discussed and motivated. In Chapter 2 we consider and analyze some results of L. D. Kudryavtsev, where he investigated one dimensional Sobolev spaces. Moreover, in this chapter we present and prove analogous results by B. L. Baidel'dinov for generalized Sobolev spaces. These results are crucially for the proofs of the main results of this Licentiate Thesis. In Chapter 3 we prove some embedding theorems for these new generalized Sobolev spaces. The main results of Kudryavtsev and Baidel'dinov about characterization of the behavior of functions at a singularity take place in weak degeneration of spaces. However, with the help of our new embedding theorems we can extend these results to the case of strong degeneration. In Chapter 4 we prove some new estimates for each function in a Tchebychev system. In order to be able to study also compactness of the embeddings from Chapter 3 such estimates are crucial. I plan to study this question in detail in my further PhD studies.

This Doctoral Thesis consists of five chapters, which deal with a new Sobolev type function space called the space with multiweighted derivatives. This space is a generalization of the usual one dimensional Sobolev space. As basis for this space serves some differential operators containing weight functions.Chapter 1 is an introduction, where, in particular, the importance to study function spaces with weights is discussed and motivated. In Chapter 2 we prove some new estimates for each function in a Tchebychev system. In order to be able to study compactness of the embeddings from Chapter 3 such estimates are crucial.In Chapter 3 we rewrite and present some results of L. D. Kudryavtsev, where he investigated one dimensional Sobolev spaces. Moreover, in this chapter we rewrite and discuss some analogous results by B. L. Baidel'dinov for generalized Sobolev spaces. These results are not available in the Western literatures in this way and they are crucial for the proofs of the main results in Chapter 4. In Chapter 4 we prove some embedding theorems for these new generalized Sobolev spaces. The main results of Kudryavtsev and Baidel'dinov about characterization of the behavior of functions at a singularity take place in weak degeneration of the spaces. However, with the help of our new embedding theorems we can extend theseresults to the case of strong degeneration.The main aim of Chapter 5 is to establish boundedness and compactness of the embedding considered in Chapter 4.In Chapter 4 basically only sufficient conditions for boundedness of this embedding were obtained. In Chapter 5 we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for boundedness and compactness of this embedding and the main results are proved in a different way.